The Shockwave Trilogy
by Speaker for the Dead aka 17
Summary: When Bill Gates takes over the Heart of Gold's Improbabilty Drive, Captain Picard and young Obi-Wan Kenobi must join forces with Q to defeat him! Cameo appearance of Voyager crew!
1. Setting the rules of chaos

*THE STORY OF SHOCKWAVE (PART 1)*  
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N.B: This story takes place 42 years before the events in Star Wars: A New Hope, when Obi-Wan is merely a young fledgling undergoing Jedi training.  
  
[ENCOUNTER LAB]  
  
It was a dull, dreary lab in the middle of some unknown conuty on some obscure planet that the man with the greatest powers in the universe sat. It was in no means an impressive lab; several hundred computers ringed the walls of the five-story structure.  
  
The man looked around at the glass-metal-and-marble lab and sighed. He should have been destinied for things greater than this, he thought. Just having control over half of this miserable planet wasn't enough for him; he wanted entire galaxies; he wanted control of the entire *universe*.  
  
But the last time he'd tried that, the Q had sent him back in time in exile on this forsaken planet. If he should ever try again, god knows what kind of punishment they'd inflict on him....  
  
"Mr Gates,sir?" asked his aide softly from behind him. 'We are recieving some kind of-"  
  
Suddenly there was a bright flash of light, and in that instant, the lab seemed to degenerate before him. In his mind's eye, he saw something rip apart, and in that rift, something drifted across... a monstrous ship....  
  
Computers peeled loose from the walls of the lab. His aide was attacking himself in a fit of anger. The fabric of the space-time continuum was falling into chaos and he had been oblivious about it!  
  
Then a strong swift feeling rushed across him, and suddenly, he felt just as whole as he'd ever been... his powers were back. His plan had worked! The chaos had caused the Q Continuum to be so distracted as to forget about him, and by the time they'd realised it, he'd be gone.... He morphed into his true form, Bill Gates, the renegade Q, and he laughed, a rich, evil laugh that resonated aroung the wreck of the lab.  
  
"Bwaa ha ha!" laughed Gates. "With my powers, nothing in this universe can stop me!" And off he plunged into the midnight, leaving a trail of confused destruction behind him.  
  
  
[JEDI COUNCIL MEETING]  
  
The universe was falling apart around them. Chaos raged like a Math teacher finding out that half the class (or more) had not done their homework.  
  
Obi-Wan was developing a huge headache from listening to everyone around him raving as well as from trying to download Shockwave properly onto his shipboard computer's Netscape Navigator 500.6. Since the recent chaos had started, the Jedi Council had required a Padawan learner to take *minutes*- could you believe it? such a primitive method!- of thier meeting. He'd given up on that task somewhere near and hour ago and had settled on the equally impossible task of downloading shockwave. However his patience was running out on that too. He was just about to start reprogramming the hard disk with his lightsaber when there was a bright flash of light around him.  
  
"Ah-ha!" he said, "I think I just managed to finish downloading  
Shockwave Flash!"  
  
"Don't be stupid, *General* Kenobi," came a condescending voice from beside him.  
  
Obi-Wan nearly jumped out of his skin. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh! Who in the world are you?"  
  
The strange apparition refused to answer his question and instead wandered over to the console. "Wow, you are trying to download Shockwave! How very brave and noble."  
  
Obi-Wan glared at him. "I'll leave the judgement of my nobility to the Jedi Masters, thank you very much. Now who in the world are you?!?"  
  
The apparition sniggered at him. "I am the morning and the evening star. I am the alpha and the omega. I am the beginning and the end. I am the great, the powerful, the invincible-"  
  
"Bill Gates?" guessed Obi-Wan, recalling a passage out of his History book.  
  
The apparition gave him a withering look. "*No*, you idiotic  
bantha-brained moron, my name is Q! An you just wrecked my nice opening speech!"  
  
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes at the pompous Q. What a jerk, he thought. By now, the entire members of the Jedi Council had their attentions rooted on Q, who suddenly felt like he was back in school, undergoing his orals....  
  
Q jerked himself out of his daydream. The entropy of the space-time fabric was affecting him more than he thought. And he hadn't even taken any orals before! Maybe now he was becoming emphatic....  
  
He turned and looked around, and saw, to his horror, that the head of the Jedi Council was Tinky-Winky.  
  
He turned and whispered to Obi-Wan. "Let's make a deal. You follow me, do whatever I say, and I give you 50 000 credits."  
  
Obi-Wan gave him and incredulous look. "What do you think I am, a fool? Of course I won't succumb to silly bribes."  
  
Q pondered a moment. "Okay. How 'bout I help you download Shockwave onto your computer?"  
  
That was far more tempting. Obi-Wan carefully weighed the pros and the cons. All those games that he could play on the INTERstellarNET after that... "Hmmm...." he said.  
  
Tinky-Winky squeaked, "Don't give in to the dark side, Obi-Wan!"  
  
Obi-Wan grimaced in revulsion. He shrugged. "Okay Q, you've got yourself a deal!"  
  
Q grinned devilishly and they both disappeared in a poof of light, leaving the Jedi Council in enough chaos to satisfy even the most unreasonable Maths teacher finding out that her entire class had not only not done their homework, but had fed it to their dogs too.  
  
  
[DISTANT PART OF THE UNIVERSE]  
  
Obi-Wan blinked in sudden confusion. Where there was once a whole Jedi council making as much noise as distressed children in a supermarket, there was only the silence of deep space. He was now floating in a vacuum filled with wildly swirling gaseous matter.  
  
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaugh!" he screamed.  
  
"Oh, do shut up," grumbled Q. "Did you come to help me, or not?"  
  
Obi-Wan stopped screaming and looked at Q. "Me help you? How? I thought you were the mourning and even star, the be giggling and the ant, the alfalfa and the Old Mega, the ingrate, the cowardful, and invisible Bill Gates?"  
  
Q tweaked Obi-Wan's ears, hard. "How many times to I have to tell you, my name is *Q*, not Bill Gates? I don't know why I picked you to help me, your memory is so pathetic you can't even remember a single letter of the alphabet."  
  
Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light, and a monstrous ship dove into view, obliterating everything else except for Obi-Wan and Q.  
  
Obi-Wan's jaw was somewhere near his ankles as he stared at the Math teacher of a starship. It was nice and sleek, and it was *huge*. Somewhere near the size of two Star Destroyers put end to end, he estimated. He had a sudden vision of an evil Empire run by dark Jedi Knights building a vessel much larger than this and using it to wreck everything else, and shuddered. He promised himself not to take anymore Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, lest they make him hallucinate again.  
  
"Yes!" Q jumped up and made a sign of victory. "We got into the right spot." He turned to Obi-Wan. "Come on. This is the ship we were looking for, the one that's making all this chaos." And before a squeak of protest could come out of Obi-Wan, there was a flash of light and they were inside the starship.  
  
[INSIDE THE STARSHIP]  
  
Chaos greeted Obi-Wan and Q like a long-lost friend, although both had just escaped its grasp a mere two minutes ago.  
  
The interior of the ship was very nicely furnished, noted Q, with pastel-coloured walls and plush upholstery, gleaming chrome staircases and even a plant or two. Unfortunately Obi-Wan had no time to appreciate all this, mostly thanks to the large frying pan that crashed smack into his head the moment he arrived on the ship.  
  
"Owwwww!" howled Obi-Wan, rubbing his head in misery. He was just about to ignite his lightsaber to protect himself from any more such attacks when he was distracted by a very alarmed scream to his right.  
  
"Arrrrrrgh!" screamed Zaphod Beeblebrox, realising that the stupid shipboard computer had erased all his important files (mostly relating to the study of the human body) *yet again*. He turned and saw Obi-Wan standing there with a confused look and a lightsaber. He didn't care so much about the confused look, but the lightsaber was just what he needed at the moment. He snatched it out of Obi-Wan's hands and raised it, preparing to cleave the computer in half.  
  
Obi-Wan, assuming that the weird guy with three hands and two heads was hostile, immediately tried snatching it back.  
  
This, unfortunately, did not work.  
  
Zaphod clung on to the lightsaber like his life, screaming, "Mine! Mine!", while Obi-Wan, equally determined, tugged with all his might, screamed back, "No! Mine! Mine! Or I'll help you not!" (Note: The latter happens to be a famous Jedi saying.) What ensued was what one could call a game of tug-of-war.  
  
Meanwhile, in a corner, Arthur Dent was having a really lousy day. He started out the morning just fine, trying to execute some of the usual functions on the computer, when it suddenly seized up and refused to talk to him.  
  
It could be called a coincidence, but the Improbability Drive chose that precise moment to start malfunctioning. Just when he thought the ensuing chaos was receding, then there had been a bright flash of light, then these two people had to come onboard and start it all over again. From his vantage point, he could see one of the pair engaged in a vigorous struggle with Zaphod Beeblebrox, and was pulling desperately at a rod of metal with one hand, while repeatedly bashing one of Zaphod's heads with a large frying pan (which, Arthur recalled,  
happened to be the one he hurled away in frustration) with the other, while screaming "Mine! Mine!" all the time. Meanwhile, Zaphod was holding on to the rod with equal zest with two of his hands, while the third one desperately tried fending off the frying pan.  
  
Arthur let out a miserable groan.  
  
In another part of the Heart of Gold, Trillian was trying to convince the computer to talk to her, to listen, to do *something* about the Improbability Drive, whose improbability ratios were skyrocketing beyond impossibly dangerous levels.  
  
The computer refused to do anything.  
  
"What *is* your problem, anyway?" shrieked Trillian in wild frustration. "Don't you have any *freaking* brains?!?!?"  
  
"My, my," said Q, suddenly appearing out of nowhere and nearly giving Trillian a heart attack, "No need to scream so loudly, the place is noisy enough as it is...."  
  
Trillian gave him a cold, hard stare. "Who are you to come barging in here and disturbing my peace? Can't you see that I'm trying to fix someth-"  
  
"Oh, shut up", grumbled Q, for the umpteenth time in that day. He leaned over the computer console, and after a lot of gentle persuasion (read: bashing and throttling the console), he managed to obtain the information he wanted. His heart sank. This was what he had been fearing all along.... Q let out a particularly nasty expletive which shocked even Zaphod Beeblebrox, half a ship's length away, who promptly dropped the lightsaber he was holding on to, much to Obi-Wan's delight.  
  
Q stormed out of the room, leaving Trillian a confused mess.  
  
Back on the bridge, Arthur figured that things were finally beginning to slow down. Although weirder and weirder stuff continued to occur (a class of RGS girls in the middle of a Maths lesson abruptly appeared for half a second before disappearing, hair grew on Picard's head, C3P0 and Marvin fell silent for over three minutes), at least the lightsaber duel (the duel over the lightsaber, that is) had ended. Just as he was beginning to relax, Q stormed onto the bridge.  
  
Arthur hit his head against the bulkhead in disappointment.  
  
Q glanced around the bridge in bemusement. Obi-Wan was there, hugging his lightsaber tightly and giving occasional dirty glances to Zaphod, who was sitting glumly on a chair and nursing severe head injuries. Arthur was there too, hiding in a corner, dejectedly bashing his head against the wall and muttering, "Why me, why me....."  
  
Q glared. "I need to talk to you guys. The situation has become far more complicated." When nobody paid particular attention to him, Q exploded and yelled, "Alright, out with it. Which nut here tried to get the computer to download Shockwave all by itself?"  
  
Everyone in the room instinctively turned to look at Arthur.  
  
"Wha... what? Why is everyone looking at me?" spluttered Arthur. "Not like it was me who tried..." Arthur looked around the room at the circle of angry faces, and sighed. "Okay, okay, fine, so it was me! So what's wrong with that?"  
  
Q had a hard time restraining himself from going over to Arthur and wringing his neck like a wet cloth. "What's wrong with that?!? Did you know that there are precisely five hundred and seventy star systems which have a law prohibiting anyone from downloading Shockwave without a professional, qualified Shockwave expert to do it?"  
  
"Oh." said Arthur. "And I suppose you're going to help me?"  
  
Q gave him a withering look. "Of course not! Who do you think I am, Bill Gates?"  
  
"You mean you're not?" asked Obi-Wan.  
  
Q ignored him with a great deal of effort and continued. "It's far too late now, and there's only one person who can undo the damage you've done, and that person is my nemesis, Bill Gates, the renegade Q! Which means we have to go find him, before this computer destroys the universe as we know it."  
  
"Go find who?" asked Obi-Wan, still fairly confused after the day's harrowing experiences.  
  
"Bill Gates, who else?" snapped Zaphod, still rubbing the bruises on his head.  
  
"Oh." He turned to Q. "So you're really not Bill Gates? I thought you were.... Oh no, why are you giving me that look? And why are you advancing towards me like that? What have I done?"  
  
Q growled and attacked.  
  
Obi-Wan's scream could be heard from the other extreme of the seven-mile long ship.  
  
[BRIDGE OF STARSHIP ENTERPRISE]  
  
Captain Jean-Luc Picard was having a bad day.  
  
Firstly he had bashed his head rather badly on the bulkhead overhang when he woke up in the morning, then he misjudged the length of his bed by half a meter and had landed rather hard on his posterior when he got out of bed, then after that he got scalded not once, but twice by hot shower water, (only because he managed to upset his breakfast tray all over himself and his nice clean uniform and therefore had to shower again) and, even worse, he had gotten lost  
on his way to the bridge, all this making him half an hour late for duty.  
  
Now, to top it all off, there was this demanding Math teacher-like superbeing wrecking havoc on his bridge.  
  
He sighed. The superbeing, who had identified himself as Bill Gates, the renegade Q, seemed intent on taking over the ship. Right now, he was standing in the middle of the bridge, threatening a lawsuit unless they brought him to some planet called Alderaan, which Picard had never heard of in his entire life. He sighed again.  
  
"Prehaps he is referring to the planet Alderaan in the Star Wars trilogy," suggested Data from Ops.  
  
"Star Wars trilogy? What's that?" asked Picard in confusion.  
  
"It was an extremely popular movie series in the late Twentieth  
Century," explained Data. 'Although, I do recall that the planet was destroyed in the fourth movie by the Imperial Death Star."  
  
"Wait, wait," said Picard in exasperation. "If it's a trilogy, how can there be a fourth movie?"  
  
"Does it matter?" snapped Bill Gates in irritation. "Just take me there, you *moron*!"  
  
That was it for Picard. Disrupting the order on his starship wasn't enough for this superbeing, he had to insult the captain too. He stood up and glared ferociously at the being. "I don't care who you are, and I don't care about your lawsuit, but if you don't get off my bridge, right now, I swear I will personally throw you out of the nearest airlock!"  
  
Bill Gates swiveled and looked at Picard. "Fine, since you won't help me, I will have to use force on you!" He snapped his fingers, and Data instanly disappeared in a poof of light.  
  
"What have you done to him?" gasped Picard.  
  
"Oh, nothing, just sent him on a little holiday to Alderaan..." replied Bill Gates with a devilish grin. "Oh, well, see you there. Unless you are going to abandon your second mate to my use...." The grin never left his face as he, too, disappeared.  
  
Troi, sitting at the back of the bridge, looked slightly confused. "Where did he just disappear to?"  
  
Picard shrugged. "Alderaan, I guess."  
  
"What?" said Troi incredulously. "But then that means that he could have gotten there himself, and he didn't need us to help!"  
  
It took a while for the implications of this revelation to sink in. Picard's anguished scream could be heard for miles and miles around.  
  
  
[HEART OF GOLD]  
  
Zaphod Beeblebrox and Obi-Wan soon realised that both of them had some personality clashes, and after several conflicts and many serious injuries, they learned to leave each other alone- somewhat. They were now sitting on opposite sides of the bridge, glaring at each other. Obi-Wan was rubbing his neck, still sore, long after Q's frenzied attack.  
  
A huge fishtank appeared over Zaphod's head and emptied itself, water, fish and all, onto him.  
  
Obi-Wan had a laughing fit.  
  
Zaphod stalked over and stuffed a large, wet, flopping fish down Obi-Wan's back.  
  
Obi-Wan yelped, picked up the fish and threw it at Zaphod's head.  
  
Zaphod growled and attacked Obi-Wan.  
  
Q sighed.  
  
Marvin was sitting in a corner, complaining about the miserable quality of life as usual. He was suddenly silenced by the Imperial stormtrooper who appeared out of nowhere and sealed duct tape over all his external speakers. Trillian started hopping around like a little kid. Suddenly she stopped, gave Q an amorous look, ran over, hugged him and gave him a passionate kiss.  
  
Q shuddered in revulsion and prayed to himself (god what) that the Improbablity drive would be fixed quickly, and the rift in the space-time continuum would be healed. The events which had been happening were far to bizarre to suit even his tastes.  
  
Suddenly the console closest to him beeped. "Ah-ha!" he exclaimed. "The stupid lag is finally over!" He walked over to the console and peered down at it. "I have got his trail! And he's gone to the.... oh, no, tell me this isn't possible... he's on the *Enterprise*?!?!?" Q slapped his forehead.  
  
"Enterprise?" asked Zaphod. "What enterprise?"  
  
Q shook his head. "The starship Enterprise, of course."  
  
"Starship enterprise?" Zaphod scratched his head, found a small fish there and flicked it out. "Oh, you mean they build starships. Or do they sell them?"  
  
"Who's 'they'?" asked Obi-Wan.  
  
Zaphod gave him an irritated glare. "Don't be dense, *moron*. Of course it's the enterprise that builds starships. Why else would it be called the Starship Enterprise?"  
  
Obi-Wan returned the glare. "*You're* the one who's being dense, *numbskull*. I thought he meant a starship named Enterprise!"  
  
"No, he means that whoever joined an enterprise that builds-"  
  
"*NO*, it's you who's wrong, he just means that-"  
  
"Cut it out, kids," grumbled Trillian. "Hey, Arthur, doesn't that sound like the Starship Enterprise in that series, oh.... what was it called? Star Wars?"  
  
Arthur looked confused. "Huh? I thought Star Wars was the one with this guy called Spock whose father was Darth Vader."  
  
"*Darth* Vader?" Obi-Wan whined. "A Sith lord!"  
  
"Yeah, and as a matter of fact, I think he didn't know until the third movie.. or was it the second.. no it was the sixth.. yeah I think the sixth. And his mentor even told him that Darth Vader killed his father, Captain Kirk." mused Arthur.  
  
"And?" asked Trillian.  
  
Arthur shrugged. "Don't ask me, I watched those movies years ago! All I remember is that a planet got blown up all for nothing, just like Earth... Oh, I remember now! It turns out that years ago Captain Kirk turned into Darth Vader after falling into a Microsoft lawsuit while fighting with his teacher who was Spock's mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Or something."  
  
"Me?!?!" squeaked Obi-Wan. "I didn't do anything! I don't know anyone called Captain Kirk or Spock or Darth Vader!"  
  
"Oh, shut up," yelled Q. "Arthur, shut up, you've got it all wrong! Their names are Luke and Anakin Skywalker, not Spock and Kirk! Spock and Kirk are from the Enterprise."  
  
"So, we're going to see them now?" asked Trillian.  
  
"Oh, no, does that mean that I'm going to turn them to the Dark side?" whined Obi-Wan.  
  
"No, that's the wrong Enterprise, that's the original one! We're going to a different one," said Q.  
  
'An alternate universe?" suggested Zaphod.  
  
"That's the first time I've heard you make and intelligent suggestion in my life," said Arthur. 'The Improbablity drive is working better than I thought."   
  
"No," said Q, "the Enterprise in in the next century. It's something to do with inheritance of names."  
  
"Can we not go?" whined Obi-Wan. "I don't wanna go."  
  
"We can't not go, I've already set the course. And stop whining. We're nearly there," said Q. Frustrated by all the noise, he turned to his console. "Wait a- oh, whoa! We *are* there! That's fast-"  
  
The Heart of Gold leaped out of hyperspace and crashed smack into the Enterprise.  
  
[BRIDGE OF THE ENTERPRISE]  
  
Picard was desperately searching for all references to the planet Alderaan on the bridge when disaster struck.  
  
The water sprinkler system activated itself and drenched the entire interior of the Enterprise. The lights flashed on and off. Gravity was disabled from decks 1 to 24 inclusive. Loud dramatic choral music sung in Sanskrit flooded the bridge. The replicators served only Klingon food and Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters. Stormtroopers bearing duct tape appeared and mummified every ensign on board. Picard's high school elementary Maths teacher appeared and started screaming at  
him. Darth Vader terrorized everyone in Main Engineering.  
  
"What the-" yelled Picard.  
  
Suddenly the Enterprise lurched very violently. The force of it, combined with the lack of gravity, smashed everyone into the far wall.  
  
"Damage?" asked Picard, floating around wildly and bumping repeately into sharp metal edges.  
  
"Mmmn nff hmfff, hrff!" replied the mostly mummified ensign who was still wedged into the bulkhead.  
  
"Can someone please take off all that duct tape?" asked Picard.  
  
Troi floated over and told Worf (wait a minute! This is the  
Enterprise-E, what's he doing there? Oh, lousy plot device generated by the Improbablity Drive.), "Restrain him. This is goning to hurt." Then she forcefully pulled off all the duct tape.  
  
The ensign screamed in pain and agony.  
  
"Okay. So, damage report?" said Picard, watching 'Toy Story' with great rapture.  
  
"No damage, sir," gasped the ensign.  
  
"No damage?!?" Picard was so shocked he smashed painfully into the far wall (again). Recovering himself, he yelled, "That's not true! That's impossible! After a collision like that......"  
  
"Anything's possible with the Improbability Drive, mon capitane, " said Q from beside Picard.  
  
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!" shrieked Picard. "Don't do that, will you!"  
  
Q looked around the bridge. "What a mess. I'll try to fix it. " He snapped his fingers, and things improved somewhat. The lights stopped flashing and gravity was restored.  
  
Picard shook his head. "I don't understand. Why is it *always* me?"  
  
Q shrugged. "It's your destiny." He gave Picard a dirty glare. "So where are you keeping him?"  
  
"Who?" aked Picard.  
  
"Who else? That scheming monster called Bill Gates, the renegade Q."  
  
"Renegade Q?" asked Picard. "And all the while I thought he was a Maths teacher."  
  
"So, where is he?"  
  
"That's what I've been trying to figure out!" yelled Picard, extra exasperated. "Look around the bridge. Doesn't something look like it's missing to you?"  
  
Q looked around. "Data's not here.... oh, CENSORED! Don't tell me he...."  
  
Picard nodded. "Yes he did."  
  
"So, then where is he now?"  
  
"I don't know! Look, if I knew where in the world Alderaan was, I would be there by now! According to Data it's something out of a set of movies called Star Wars! So where am I supposed to go find him, on the holovid channel?" yelled Picard.  
  
"Alderaan?" Q heaved a sigh of relief. 'I can get you there. Or at least, someone can." He looked at the viewscreen, and suddenly realised it was playing Oscar speeches over and over again for no apparent reason. He snapped his fingers, and the viewscreen changed to the view of the Heart of Gold, dwarfing the Enterprise, outside. 'Only problem is, the ship out here is big but all its drives are malfunctioning. Can you tractor it with the Enterprise?"  
  
Picard nearly fainted at the size of the ship. "Look at the size of that thing! Well, I suppose I could..."  
  
"Good!" he snapped his fingers.  
  
The Enterprise shook and light eneveloped the bridge as they leapt into another universe.  
  
When Picard could see again, Obi-Wan was on the bridge, cringing and crying for his mommy.  
  
"Oh, shut up," said Q, kicking Obi-Wan.  
  
Obi-Wan stopped crying and looked at Q. "How wude!"he exclaimed.  
  
"Yeah, yeah," groaned Q. "Now will you kindly take us to Alderaan?"  
  
"Alderaan?" asked Obi-Wan, "Why? Isn't that the place where the Shockwave program files are manufactured? What would this chaotic chain of events have to do with that?"  
  
Q slapped his forehead. "Everything! Fear is the path to the dark side- oh, what am I talking about? Just shut up and get us to Alderaan!" And he gave Obi-Wan a second kick for good measure.  
  
"Oww! Okay! Okay! I get the point!" Obi-Wan picked himself up, went to the Ops console and keyed in the coordinates. "There! happy?"  
  
Q heaved a sigh of relief. At least, something was going right today.  
  
Another bright flash of light turned Obi-Wan and Troi into five year-old kids.  
  
On second thoughts, I could be sadly mistaken, thought Q.  
  
"I have a baaaad feeling about this," commented Picard.  
  
"Tell me about it, " agreed Q. Obi-Wan stopped screaming for a moment, looked down at himself, and started screaming again. Troi looked at him, kicked him hard and said, "Shut up, pipsqueak!"  
  
Picard looked surprised.  
  
Troi shrugged. "I was a very mean kid."  
  
"So was I," said Obi-Wan, and he immediately jumped at Troi and started to wring her neck. Q sighed, rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. The pair of kids disappeared in a flash of light.  
  
"And, uhm, where did you just send them to?" asked Picard.  
  
Q grinned devilishly. "Well, since they are so mean, I decided to send them on a little holoday to torment my nemesis on Alderaan...."  
  
"But he's a Math teacher!" said Picard. "Those two kids will never survive him!" He groaned. "And to think that I'll never see Counselor Troi again... I was hoping to marry her just in case Beverly rejects me...."  
  
"Oops," said Q, "I forgot to tell you that the channel to her quarters was open and she can hear everything we say on the bridge...."  
  
At that moment, Beverly Crusher stormed onto the bridge, grabbed Picard by his neck and started pounding on his head with a rolling pin.  
  
Q chuckled. The ride to Alderaaan was going to be more fun than he thought.  
  
To Be Continued.......  



	2. Breaking the rules of chaos

THE STORY OF SHOCKWAVE (PART 2)  
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THE STORY SO FAR: A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, Bill Gates, the renegade Q, has broken loose from his exile on planet Earth and caused chaos in the universe, helped by a rift in the space-time continuum caused by a malfunction in the Heart of Gold's Improbability Drive. He has kidnapped Data to the planet Alderaan where he is trying to take over the universe. Our hero, Q, races across the galaxy with the Enterprise-E and the Heart of Gold to Alderaan where Obi-Wan and Deanna Troi, both five years old, have been sent to (it's a long story).....  
  
  
[SURFACE OF ALDERAAN]  
  
Obi-Wan and Deanna stared at each other in shock. In less than a minute, they had gone from being confused adults, to confused five-year-olds, to very confused five-year-olds abandoned on the surface of an alien planet.  
  
Obi-Wan picked himself up and stared around. There was lush greenery galore, with birds flittering here and there. He was beginning to think that this was a really nice place until he turned around and saw what was behind him.  
  
A very large Microsoft building sticking out of the ground like an eyesore (in other words, a very large microsoft building, *grin*).  
  
Obi-Wan reeled in shock.  
  
Deanna was staring with open disgust at the huge picture of Bill Gates (the indulgent, egoistic person that he was) plastered on the face of the building. "Him again," she muttered.  
  
"It's a Microsoft building!" exclaimed Obi-Wan. "Someone must have built it here."  
  
Deanna rolled her eyes. 'Your ability to state the blindingly obvious continues to stun me." She looked around and concluded, "Q must have brought us to Alderaan instantaneously."  
  
Obi-Wan nodded in agreement. "Then there must be some reson as to why we are here...."  
  
Deanna picked herself off the ground and glared at Obi-Wan. "What else, dolt? We're here to save Data from Bill Gates, of course!"  
  
"Save him?" asked Obi-Wan tentatively. "I'm not so sure about that." He shuddered. "It's dangerous..."  
  
"Oh, come on," said Deanna persuasively, "I'm sure it's perfectly safe. Besides, I'm curious. I've always wanted to see what one of these buildings look like on the inside... haven't you?" She began heading for the building.  
  
"Well, I'm not," insisted Obi-Wan. "Don't you know curiosity killed the cat?"  
  
Deanna shrugged. "Doesn't bother me. *I'm* not a cat." She walked on some more, then turned and added over her shoulder, "But that's what *you* certainly are, *scaredy-cat*!"  
  
"Are you insulting me?" fumed Obi-Wan, dashing after her. "Well, have it your way then! I'm coming after you!" And the two children were swallowed up by the darkness of the garangutan building.  
  
[ENTERPRISE BRIDGE]  
  
Riker was having a hard time. A very hard time.  
  
It was not just the fact that his potential fiancee had been turned into a five-year old kid. Nor was it the fact that she had been unwillingly transported to an alien planet with a hostile Q on it. It wasn't even the fact that he was valiantly trying to separate Crusher from Picard before she killed him (and getting very bruised in the process).  
  
It was the fact that Q was sitting in the Captain's chair, stuffing his face with popcorn and laughing his guts out while people were in mortal danger.  
  
Riker finally managed to pull the two apart.  
  
Q laughed. "Encore! Encore!" He yelled.  
  
Beverly took one look at Q, then picked up a loose sledgehammer lying around somewhere and charged back at Picard.  
  
Riker nearly tore out his hair in fustration. "Why don't you come and help me, instead of sitting there and laughing at our pathetic helpless state?" he yelled at Q.  
  
Q chuckled in mirth. 'No, don't stop, this is most entertaining!" he said.  
  
"Well, it's not so funny when you're- wait a minute, why am I asking you for help when I could easily ask Worf?" said Riker.  
  
Worf snickered from the far corner. "I was waiting to see how long it would take you to notice that I was somewhere around here."  
  
"Well, come and help me-"  
  
He was suddenly interrupted by an extremely bright flash of light which threw everyone off thier feet.  
  
Red alert lights were flashing, and smoke poured out onto the bridge. Picard pushed a stunned Beverly off himself and stood up, wholeheartedly glad for the intermission. "Report!"  
  
"We've been hit!" exclaimed Worf from tactical, "Our power linkage core has been hit and the fore shields are failing."  
  
"Onscreen," commanded Picard.  
  
A vast Star Destroyer filled the screen, bearing the Microsoft logo on the side. As they watched, two, and now four, more garangutan ships approached and flanked it.  
  
"Why do I get a very very bad feeling..." muttered Riker as a volley of quantum torpedoes launched from the ships and headed for them.  
  
  
[INTERIOR OF MICROSOFT BUILDING]  
  
Obi-Wan and Deanna gazed around them in wonder and shock. The foyer they had just stepped into was vast, vaster than any other they'd seen. It stretched upwards for hundreds of meters. Sunlight poured in through scores of windows, glinting of scores of metal constructs and scores of consoles mounted on the vast walls of the room.  
  
And also on the scores of battle droids stationed around, who promptly turned around and fixed thier blasters on the two kids.  
  
"Uh-oh," said Obi-Wan, "this is *not* good."  
  
"What should we do now?" whispered Deanna.  
  
"I think running would be a good idea," replied Obi-Wan.  
  
They turned and ran.  
  
The droids gave chase.  
  
Deanna picked up speed, and dashed around the corner. As Obi-Wan rounded the corner, he was pulled into the ventilation duct by suprise.  
  
The droids rounded the corner and found nobody. "They must have gone the other way," concluded the lead droid. The squadron quickly turned and continued the hunt for the two missing children.  
  
A grate shifted on the ventilation ducts and Obi-Wan poked his head out. "Safe now," he said. 'Let's get out of here." And he began to climb out of the duct.  
  
Deanna fiercely pulled him back in. "What are you, insane? We've got to stay here, where its safe. They'll kill us if we go out there!"  
  
"Stay here? And do what?" asked Obi-Wan.  
  
"This place must be of much importance to Bill Gates if it's so well protected," mused Deanna. "We have to find out what it is!"  
  
"What, do you think he produces Shockwave files here?" asked Obi-Wan. "Then maybe I can a free copy! So that's what Q sent me here for! He's going to help me!"  
  
Deanna stared at him, confused. "Huh?"  
  
Obi-Wan shook his head. "Nevermind, let's just go!" And he dragged Deanna down the ventilation shafts.  
  
[BATTLE NEAR ENTERPRISE]  
  
Worf gritted his teeth as his armored shuttle shook under the intensity of the quantum torpedoes. He twisted sharply to avoid one, and saw it slam into Ensign Expandable's shuttle, totally decimating it. Oh well.  
  
He floored the accelerator pedal and zoomed in on the surface of the garangutan Star Destroyer. He swooped and turned around collectors, gun stations, and fired wildly, hitting anything and everything within range which moved.  
  
"Yippee! Yahoo!" Just like an arcade game, he thought. This was so fun.  
  
"Mr Worf, do you see thier weapons bank yet?" asked Picard over the comm system.  
  
Worf glanced out at the shuttle beside him. "No sir. But this *is* enjoyable."  
  
"As I can tell," said Picard, swerving to avoid a gun turret in his way.  
  
A fleet of enemy fighters appeared over the horizon.  
  
"Uh-oh," said Picard. "Ouch time."  
  
"By the way, sir," said Worf, firing at the nearest Interceptor, "Why did you choose to join this battle?"  
  
"Well, it sure beats being bashed up by a sledgehammer," replied Picard, maneuvering out of enemy fire and destroying yet another figther.  
  
"Agreed, sir," remarked Worf, as another two Interceptors erupted into balls of flame under his expert hand.  
  
The battle continued to rage.  
  
[HEART OF GOLD]  
  
Arthur Dent yelled in pain as he was slammed into the sharp end of console as the ship lurched under the fullisade of the Star Destroyer's attack.  
  
Marvin was in a corner, whining. "We're doomed. I knew it. We're doomed."  
  
"Shut up," grumbled Zaphod, who was in his blackest mood at the moment. "Who took off the duct tape anyway?"  
  
"Duct tape?" asked Arthur. "Since when was there any?"  
  
"We've got to help them!" said Trillian, pointing out of the viewscreen at the remaining two shuttles valiantly struggling against a fleet of TIE fighters.  
  
"How?" snapped Zaphod. "All the shipboard functions are inaccessible."  
  
"There has a way to get past them..." muttered Trillian.  
  
Suddenly Arthur yelled. "Hey, I seem to have hit something! Now the controls for weaponry work!"  
  
"Finaly the Monkeyman has done something right!" yelled Zaphod. "It's a miracle! The Improbability Drive must have done it."  
  
Two wads of paper fired out from the Heart of Gold's torpedo tubes. They shot out, careened towards the nearest Star Destroyer, then turned back, full velocity, at the two ships.  
  
"I have a bad feeling about this...." said Arthur.  
  
[SOMEWHERE IN ALDERAAN]  
  
"I have a bad feeling about this...." said Obi-Wan. The two children stood in a huge hangar bay which rivaled the size of Starfleet's Utopia Planetia fleetyards. The evil Microsoft Empire was building a huge fleet of starships!  
  
"And a construction platform to large even to fit in this hangar bay...." muttered Deanna, pointing to a large construct at the far end of the monstrous room.  
  
"What are they trying to build, a planet?" asked Obi-Wan skeptically.  
  
"More like a planet destroyer," corrected Deanna.  
  
There was silence in the hangar bay.  
  
A wave of premonition swept across the two children.  
  
Could Deanna have *gasp gasp* Jedi powers? Is she an oracle?  
  
Deanna stared uneasily across the hangar. "Let's get out of here. I have a really bad feeling-"  
  
A phalanx of battle droids appeared out of nowhere and began to chase the two children.  
  
Oh my! She *does* have oracular powers!  
  
The two kids ran frantically down the giant hangar. Obi-Wan tripped over his own feet and fell off the walkway, down fives storeys to the nearest building floor. Ouch.  
  
Deanna turned around. Gas was issuing from a ruptured pipe (droids have bad aim too) and she couldn't see anything. "Obi-Wan!" she yelled.  
  
No reply.  
  
Gritting her teeth, Deanna ran on.  
  
[ENTERPRISE BRIDGE]  
  
Riker gritted his teeth as the bridge of the Enterprise shook,and clung even tighter to his joystick. Unerved by the fact that he was controlling not one, but TWO ships the size of a city each, Riker swerved the joystick wildly. The two pursuing balls of paper shot past them, turned round and came at them again.  
  
Riker groaned and dove the ships down steeply. The two balls of paper overshot and crashed into one of the smaller Star Destroyers. There was no explosion. Then slowly, the ship began to fall apart from the inside.  
  
"Lawsuits," whistled Riker. "Impressive."  
  
Encouraged by this turn of events, the Heart of Gold began pumping out more of the balls of paper.  
  
Riker slapped his forehead in fustration and grabbed the joystick in preparation. "Oh no, here we go again."  
  
  
[SHUTTLE BATTLE]  
  
Worf and Picard nosedived in tandem, avoiding two huge balls of paper which smashed into the Destroyer beside them, which began slowly disintegrating. Behind them, the Enterprise looked like it was doing the Dance of the Bumblebees.  
  
"Cover me, Mr Worf. I'm going in," said Picard.  
  
Going in? To where?  
  
"I see thier central weapons bank. Everthing's interconnected to it. If I hit it, the whole system goes down."  
  
Sounds like the relationship between my Internet browser and my hard disk.  
  
Picard accelerated and zoomed in for the kill, swerving around support pillars and gun turrets.  
  
Worf blew up anything in the way.  
  
Picard aimed for the weapons bank and fired. Instead he hit and decimated a support pillar which began to topple over.  
  
"Oops, wrong one." The whole structure now sagged over and started to collapse on the weapons bank.  
  
"Uh-oh, this is *not* good," muttered Worf.  
  
"Time to get out of here!" yelped Picard, zipping past Worf's shuttle. Worf nodded in agreement and joined him. Behind them, the support pillar crashed into the weapons bank, sending out a flare of hot gas and plasma whick threw a shock wave at the two fleeing shuttles.  
  
The systems on every other ship crashed and died. Now how's that for a spectacular system crash!  
  
"Yippee! Whoo-hoo!" cheered Worf.  
  
"You did it! All by yourself! Two shuttles!" said Riker in triumph over the conn as he dispatched the last bunch of paper balls onto the now-defunct lead Destroyer.  
  
"Aren't you proud of me?" asked Picard.  
  
"Wait, two shuttles?" asked Worf. "What happened to all the other twenty-eight shuttles?"  
  
"Piloted by ensigns," replied Riker. "Hurry up and come back to the Enterprise, we need to investigate this."  
  
"Go back?" asked Picard hesitantly. "Well, yes.... but on one condition...."  
  
"What?" asked Riker.  
  
"Make sure Beverly is confined to sickbay."  
  
[BACK ON ALDERAAN]  
  
Deanna stopped running and peered aroung a corner. There was total silence in the hangar- the battle droids were gone. She quickly ran down to the nearest building floor.  
  
The silence was unnerving.  
  
"Obi-Wan?" She whispered tentatively. The corridor was totally empty. "Hello? Obi-Wan, where are you?" she repeated. Moving down the corridor, her foot bumped into something. She picked it up. It was a lightsaber... Obi-Wan's lightsaber.  
  
'He must have been kidnapped," said Deanna to herself. "Oh great. Now, instead of one, I have TWO people to rescue, and all by myself too." She looked around and saw a access console two floors below. "Well, I'd better get started."  
  
She ran down and started fiddling with the consoles. She randomly pushed buttons and watched the screen shift. Images and messages flashed by. She rapidly sifted through the information being shown to her.  
  
Banana cake recipes, the diary of Adolf Hitler, the GCE O levels, ways to torture your Maths teacher (wait Deanna I want that! Arrgh too late), Death Star plans, the Clinton scandal...  
  
Wait a minnit, Death Star plans?  
  
Deanna backtracked and stared at the screen. There it was, a souped up AT&T logo, in construction and bound for... Earth?  
  
Earth was going to be destroyed!   
  
"I've got to do something!" said Deanna. But what? She poked further into the computing system and found that Bill Gates had taken his captives to the Death Star construction site in the Alderaanian system's nebula, called Pentium.   
  
Just then she heard something beep... her communicator. Why, she still had it with her! She answered it. "Troi here."  
  
"Counselor!" Picard's voice said. 'Are you alright?"  
  
"Of course I am!" she said indignantly. "Are you at Alderaan already?"  
  
"Oh yes, but we had a haaard time getting here. Well standby to be beamed up..."  
  
And so Deanna disappeared from the hangar bay, taking all her secrets with her.....  
  
[DEATH STAR CONSTRUCTION SITE]  
  
Data looked around him curiously. Someone else had been thrown into his cell. A little boy. The kid glared at the guard who had thrown him in as the forcefields flickered back into place.  
  
The kid turned and stared at Data. "Are you an angel?"  
  
"I beg your pardon?" said Data with slight amusement.  
  
"An angel," repeated the kid. "I've heard of them before, but I've never seen one."  
  
"I'm not an angel," replied Data, chuckling. "But I am an android."  
  
"Oh." said the kid, clearly disappointed.  
  
"I am Lt. Commander Data of the Starship Enterprise," introduced Data. "And you are?"  
  
"I'm Obi-Wan!" he exclaimed, his eyes growing bigger. "You must be the one that Deanna was talking about. The one we had to rescue." He sat down beside Data. "Okay, now all we have to do is to figure out how to get away from here."  
  
Oh wow. The relevation of the year.  
  
Data scrutinized the kid carefully. "Obi-Wan..." the name did ring a bell. "Aren't you from the Star Wars trilogy?"  
  
Obi-Wan gave him a long, hard stare, then finally asked, "Do you know anyone named Kirk or Spock?"  
  
Data frowned. 'As a matter of fact, yes, I do."  
  
Obi-Wan nodded. 'Then make sure I never get near to them."  
  
Data shrugged. 'That is quite easily taken care of. Kirk is dead already."  
  
"Oh, no!" wailed Obi-Wan. "And it's all my fault!" He buried his head in his hands.  
  
"I'm sure it isn't..." comforted Data. "After all, you've never even met him."  
  
"But Arthur Dent said it was my fault!" groaned Obi-Wan. "Oh never mind, just keep me out of Spock's way and I'll be fine."  
  
"That's alright with me," said Data.  
  
Suddenly Bill Gates appeared out of nowhere and grinned maniacally at his two captives. He laughed maniacally. "Ha! Ha! Ha! My new Death Star is nearly completed and to demonstrate my power over the galaxy I will blow up none other than the forsaken planet known as Earth."  
  
Data and Obi-Wan looked at each other in alarm.  
  
[PENTIUM NEBULA]  
  
The Enterprise soared beside a giagntic swirling nebula, Pentium, where the Death Star was under construction. (Intel Inside, geddit?)  
  
"Look!" said Riker, as they sailed past the nebula. "The nebula has a moon in it!"  
  
Worf stared at the 'moon' and finally said, "That's no moon, that's a space station."  
  
"I have baaad feeling about this..." muttered Picard.  
  
"That's the weapon that they're going to use to blow up Earth!" said Deanna, standing on Picard's chair and pointing. How wude.  
  
"But Earth has already been blown up," exclaimed Arthur Dent over the comm system.  
  
"Not in this universe it hasn't," replied Picard curtly.  
  
"We've got to stop them!" exclaimed Riker. "How?"  
  
Deanna frowned. "The battle station must have some weaknesses to it. All we have to do is to find it and attack the station..."  
  
"Good idea," said Picard. "Let's beam down an away team."  
  
Before they could do that, however, the Death Star zipped away into warp. Everyone on the bridge groaned except Q. "Stop whinihg, you pathetic humans, I'll get you there faster than he will..."  
  
He snapped his fingers and immediately the two ships were orbiting Earth, which was being blockaded by a whole bunch of Star Destroyers. And the Death Star was already there. Suddenly out of nowhere, the entire Pentium Nebula appeared and cloaked the Death Satr, some of the Star Destroyers and the two ships.  
  
"Now what?" asked Picard, looking at Q. "You brought us into this, so you'd better help us." He gave him an insolent glare."  
  
Q shrugged. "Alright, then I suggest you send the girl-" he gestured at Troi-" onto that Death Star to find out its secrets."  
  
Picard looked at Troi. She pushed her chin up defiantly. "I'm ready to do my part," she said.  
  
Riker groaned. "Oh, no, not again, Deanna," he groaned. "Don't you know that it's not safe?"  
  
Before he could finish his sentence, she was already gone.  
  
[DEATH STAR BRIDGE]  
  
Obi-Wan and Data were tied in the middle of a vast bridge filled with ticking dials and controls. It was all very impressive. The only problem was, Bill Gates had built and designed it. (And you know what his stuff are like...)  
  
"*Bwaa ha ha ha ha ha ha!*" laughed the renegade Q evilly. "With my powers and my new superweapon, nobody in the universe can stop me! And the destruction of planet Earth will justify that!"  
  
"Why would it?" asked Obi-Wan. "I thought Earth was just a miserable planet in some far-off corner of the galaxy! You said so yourself!"  
  
"Aaah, but not so in this century! Earth is the adminstrative centre of Starfleet!" He said smugly.  
  
"But not the Galactic Republic," pointed out Obi-Wan. "And you'll never destroy them unless you get to Coruscant!"  
  
"Why, that's right," said Bill Gates, a slow fierce grin spreading across his face. "Then we should deal with Coruscant first, shouldn't we?" He turned to his navigator and said, "Take the whole fleet to Coruscant, right now."  
  
Data gace Obi-Wan a big glare for giving Bill Gates nifty ideas.  
  
The entire Microsoft fleet disappeared into the void.  
  
[HEART OF GOLD]  
  
Arthur was miserable. He had been miserable for a looong time. Ever since this thing started it had been getting worse and worse and worse... fortunately for him now it was slightly better at the familiar sight of his home planet spinning below him. "Ahhh.... home..." sighed Arthur.  
  
"They're powering thier weapons," commented Marvin. 'It looks like they're going to destroy Earth... again."  
  
Arthur collapsed into a big, sobbing pile.  
  
"Oh, come on," cajoled Ford Prefect, "don't upset the Monkeyman anymore than he already is."  
  
The ship shook a little and Earth disappeared. He screamed. "NOOOOOOOOO!" And he collapsed into a bigger sobbing pile. What a loser.  
  
"Stop crying, big nut, they haven't blown up Earth! We've been transported to another place!" Trillian gestured at the viewscreen. The huge Microsoft fleet now lay orbiting around Coruscant.  
  
Arthur looked up. True, indeed. A brownish, glowing planet filled the viewscreen. "Instantaneous transportation, " groaned Arthur. "I hate that."  
  
A huge plastic hammer appeared out of nowhere and clobbered Zaphod Beeblebrox on the head, sending him sprawling onto Marvin. A tub of ice cream appeared in Marvin's hand, who wasted no time in getting it on Zaphod' face.  
  
Zaphod licked the ice cream off his face. "Maybe this thing isn't so bad after all."  
  
The ship began to rumble real badly.  
  
[ENTERPRISE BRIDGE]  
  
Picard took one look at Coruscant and screamed. "Arrrrgh! The Borg! The Borg have assimilated Earth! Auuuuuugggg-"  
  
Q snapped his fingers in irritation and Picard turned into a small, pink, whimpering bunny.  
  
"Thank you for shutting up, mon captaine," said Q smugly.  
  
Riker took one look at the pink bunny and screamed. "Auuuuuuuuugggg-"  
  
Riker disappeared and another bunny appeared. "Oh wow," said Q sarcastically, "they're multiplying like rabbits."  
  
"Stop it," snarled Worf, "Because with Data kidnapped, Picard and Riker bunnies, Troi on the Death Star and Crusher confined to Sickbay, I have to be captain."  
  
Q looked horrified, snapped his fingers and turned Worf into a huge pink raging bunny.  
  
Geordi arrived on the bridge in a great hurry, and not of his own accord. He looked around at the bridge filled with terrified ensigns and cute pink bunnies, and asked, "Where's all the sentient beings gone?"  
  
Before Q could answer him, the ship started shaking. *Real* badly.  
  
"We're under attack!" exclaimed Geordi. At this every ensign on the bridge freaked and stood a million miles away from any console.  
  
Geordi rolled his eyes. "Great! So I have to pilot the ship, fire and look out for exploding things all at the same time, all by myself."  
  
And speaking of exploding things, the consoles start to do thier stuff all over again. And would you know it, they kill the people who happen to be standing the furthest away from it. No prizes for guessing who.  
  
The ship stopped shaking for a while, and Geordi looked around at the mess of the ship, covered in dead bodies and about fifteen pink bunnies (oh my, don't tell me that they are actually reproducing?)  
  
Geordi glared at Q. "Look, if you really want to stop the universe from being destroyed by Bill Gates I suggest you start helping us and *not* sit down there eating popcorn, throwing stuff at the viewscreen and yelling 'encore! encore!'"  
  
The popcorn in Q's hand disappeared and he pondered for a moment. "I suppose you're right," he said, "I was getting a little distracted by all this fun." He snapped his fingers, and most of the senior crew was restored, along with a raging Beverly Crusher who suddenly realised that she had been released from confinement.  
  
She saw Picard on the bridge, and flew at him like a raging Maths teacher.  
  
At this point, the ship once again saved Picard's life by deciding to start getting fired at. Picard hastily pushed Crusher off him and tried to take control. "Report!"  
  
"The Republic fleet is firing at us, sir!" yelled Geordi. His eyes widened. "They think we are the "ones whose destruction will bring balance to the Force." He looked confused. "What's that mean?"  
  
Picard shrugged. "It just means that they're going to obliterate us."  
  
The ship began to rumble even more badly.... and then time stopped.  
  
[LEAD STAR DESTROYER]  
  
"Uh oh,' said Troi, as the ship rumbled and everything froze in place except her. "Methinks that I've done something," she muttered.   
  
She was halfway to the bridge. GLancing out of the window, she saw photon torpedo tubes poised between the intimidating Coruscant fleet and the equally intimidating Microsoft fleet. Oh, and the Enterprise and the Heart of Gold trapped somewhere in between. "At least this gives me some time to start mucking about and try to stop this," she muttered. She sat down and tried to start formulating a plan to get them out of the muck they were in. After some time, she began to get an idea, but she would need help.   
  
Deanna sat down, closed her eyes and started to meditiate. When she had calmed down enough, she spread her thoughts far and wide and tried to locate the bridge.  
  
'Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."  
  
[HEART OF GOLD]  
  
Arthur felt helpless in the time-frozen bridge of the Heart of Gold. Everything on the bridge was frozen except for the sentinent beings, which, unfortunately, included Marvin, who was complaining as usual. And of course, the Improbablity Drive, which was the key to the whole problem all the time.  
  
He poked around the bridge. "Nothing's working," he grumbled. "Not even the food replicator."  
  
"Well, at least we're not being fired at," grumbled Trillian. "I hope that the Improbability Drive fixes this time-stuck thing soon, though."  
  
Arthur and Trillian share a significant look.  
  
Foreshadowing.....  
  
[TO BE CONTINUED] 


	3. Rule of Chaos? Fuggeddaboudit!

THE STORY OF SHOCKWAVE PART THREE  
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||  
  
THE STORY SO FAR: Bill Gates is an escaped renegade Q who is now intending to destroy Coruscant with his super large and powerful fleet of Star Destroyers and his Death Star. Meanwhile the Heart of Gold's Improbability Drive continues wreaking havoc by stopping time, five-year old Deanna Troi is trying to contact the captive five-year old Obi-Wan Kenobi to help her save the day with help from Data, also another captive... (it's a very very looooong story)   
  
  
[ENTERPRISE BRIDGE]  
  
The entire bridge was silent and frozen. So were all the ensigns. So were all the senior crew.  
  
Picard was the first to thaw from the shock. "What in the world?"  
  
Q shrugged. "Time has just stopped for this quadrant." He looked out of the window. "Pity, though. I'd like to see what those proton torpedoes out there could do to your puny ship...'  
  
Picard growled at Q.  
  
"Okay, okay, so maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea. I know, I know, you need my help..." he suddenly trailed off and stared into space.  
  
The entire senior crew had unfrozen themselves now and were desperately trying to unfreeze the ensigns, but they were stuck in time (only sentient beings were spared, remember?) Picard, however, was more surprised by Q's sudden silence. "Q?"  
  
"As do some other people," completed Q smugly before disappearing.  
  
"Wha- what? Q? Come back!" wailed Picard. 'Come back! Don't leave me! Don't leave me! I need your help!" But Q was gone. And to make matters worse, his wailing drew Beverly's attention to him and she began attacking him with renewed vigour.  
  
  
[DEATH STAR BRIDGE]  
  
Luckily for Deanna, at least some stuff was working out for he. Bill Gates was distracted by Obi-Wan, whom, with Data's help, had broken loose, leaving her and Data alone to muck around with the ship's console.  
  
"As I was saying," said Bill Gates amiably to Obi-Wan, "you should keep a nice long pigtail. It's the heigt of the fashion."  
  
"But you don't have one," pointed out Obi-Wan.  
  
Bill Gates shrugged. "Inconsequential." He snapped his fingers, and a huge long braid grew out of the back of his head. 'There! Now I have one! A queue for a Q!" He burst into maniacal laughter.  
  
There was a bright flash of light and Q appeared on the bridge. "Did I hear you mention my name?" he asked sweetly.  
  
The laughter ceased. "You!!!" raged Bill Gates. "I suppose you've come here to help them in thier escape plan." He gestured to Deanna and Data. "Well, you're not! Don't think I don't know what they're doing. They won't get anywhere. And *you're not helping them!!!!*"  
  
"You know, Obi-Wan," said Q conspiratorily, "You should really get a ponytail instead of a pigtail. And dye your hair red."  
  
Bill Gates raged. "Hey!!! He's MY student! Stop corrupting him!"  
  
Just then a furious Jedi Council, lightsabers and all, beamed onto the bridge, ready to devastate it. Bill Gates, horrified but seeing his chance, turned them all into Smurfs with temporary Q powers.  
  
Q, equally horrified, transported the Smurfs into another galaxy, another quadrant and another starship....  
  
[VOYAGER BRIDGE]  
  
Captain Janeway stared at the bunch of strange little blue creatures with white hats who suddenly appeared on her bridge. The newcomers looked confused for a second, then shrugged collectively and ran around singing a most irritating tune: "La la la la la la, la la la la la...."  
  
Paris, at the helm, noticed that the intruders resembled the Smurfs of a certain 20th century animated series, and repressed a shudder.  
  
Another volley of photon torpedoes rocked the bridge. Janeway groaned. "I don't have time for this," she muttered. "Of all times, we have to get strange irritating little visitors in the middle of a Borg attack."  
  
Chakotay suggested that they beam the Smurfs into Borg space. Janeway agreed. "Tuvok, I want you to round up all those critters and beam them into the heart of the Borg fleet." I smell trouble brewing...  
  
Within a minute the Smurfs were all off the ship.  
  
Or so they thought.  
  
"Captain," said Tuvok. "It seems that we only managed to get seven of the Smurfs off the ship. Two of them seem to have escaped."  
  
Just then a smurf popped out from under the captain's chair. "Suprise!"  
  
The Smurf beamed away under Tuvok's expert guidance.  
  
"Well so that one's gone. And where is the other one?" asked Janeway. (Hey, she can count!)  
  
Tuvok checked his console, then shrugged.  
  
"He does not seem to have exited the bridge via the turbolift," said Tuvok. "It may be entirely possible that these creatures have supernatural powers that-"  
  
"Enough of that," grumbled Janeway, feeling a raging headache coming on. "WHERE *IS* HE?"  
  
Tuvok glanced significantly at his captain before answering.  
  
"Astrometrics Lab."  
  
[ASTROMETRICS LAB]  
  
Harry Kim frowned, unsure of what to do with thier blue-skinned, singing unwelcome visitor. "Uh, hello." he said uncertainly. The Smurf didn't so much as look at him, so Harry stepped in front of the Smurf and said. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"  
  
The Smurf glared at him. "How wude."  
  
Harry Kim turned into a bowl of pudding.  
  
Would you know it? If the Smurfs are going to do anything nasty, they have to do it to Harry first.  
  
Seven looked shocked. 'What have you done?"  
  
The Smurf scowled at Seven, then picked up the bowl of pudding and started throwing it's contents at her. And no, the bowl of pudding did not suddenly freeze up, crack over and fall to the floor.  
  
I bet Harry's enjoying this. *evil grin*  
  
Seven yelped as icky pudding splattered all over her face and uniform. "Yuck! Stop it!" She reached out to grab the bowl of pudding from the Smurf.  
  
The Smurf frowned and smashed the entire bowl smack in her face. Which was good, since she chose this moment to start screaming continuously. The pudding got into her mouth and kind of stopped it up. Ewwwww......  
  
"What a mess," said the Smurf. He was about to turn Seven into a pink guinea pig when the wizards on the bridge locked the transporter on him and beamed him to join his fellow Smurfs.  
  
And the wizards on the bridge watched in satisfaction as the Smurfs blew up the entire fleet of Borg cubes, taking themselves with it.  
  
Meanwhile in Astrometrics, the influence of the Smurf dissolves and Harry returns to his original form... practically doing a mouth-to-mouth with Seven.  
  
Ohhhhhhhh, boy.....  
  
We now return you to the Alpha Quadrant...  
  
[DEATH STAR BRIDGE]  
  
Obi-Wan stared in shock at the spot which was once occupied by Smurfs. "What have you done with them?"  
  
"Oh..." said Q devilishly, "I just gave them a little tour of the Delta Quadrant."  
  
[At this point of time an irate member of the audience (whose identity I will not reveal because I'm kind) stands up and yells that I should finish the part about Harry and Seven. Well I won't, so there! Finish it in whatever way you want. Use your own imagination. Write your own piece of fan fic. And no, threatening me with that phaser rifle won't work, person-whose-identity-I-won't-reveal-beacuse-- ah, heck, who know who you are, Kate!]  
  
[Anyway, back to the story....]  
  
Bill Gates shrugged and continued. 'And so, my young Padawan learner, let me instruct you in the merits of keeping a pigtail...."  
  
"No," said Q, "Ponytail's better."  
  
"Pigtail!'  
  
"Ponytail!"  
  
"Pigtail!"  
  
"Ponytail!"  
  
And so on..... Obi-Wan was beginning to get a huge headache. "Who should I believe?" he muttered to himself. Bill Gates... or this insane Q who got me into this in the first place?" He scratched his head. "I, well, maybe I don't know," said Obi-Wan hesitantly. "I think I'll adopt Picard's hairstyle."  
  
The two Qs glared at him. "*Picard's* hairstyle??? And after all I've taught you...." They advanced on him murderously.  
  
Obi-Wan gulped. "Uh-oh." Being cornered by one Math teacher-like superbeing is bad enough, but two is worse. Waaaay worse.  
He decided to change his mind abruptly for a compromise. "Okay! I think both are equally good ideas! Maybe I'll get both!"  
  
Q and Bill Gates glared at each other. "Both?!? This... is...war!!" said Bill Gates, growling at Q. "I'm going to flatten you!!!  
  
I thought he'd made that pretty clear at the beginning.  
  
The two begin rolling up thier sleeves. Obi-Wan, seeing his chance, disappears behind a chair. Deanna grabbed him from behind. 'I need your help."  
  
Obi-Wan turned around, and saw her. "Deanna!" he said. 'I didn't know you were here." He beams at her.  
  
Deanna returns the smile.  
  
Something passes through the air between them....  
  
Data breaks thier reverie. "Tell him about our plan."  
  
Deanna breaks her gaze from Obi-Wan, the good mood spoilt. "We've manage to get the computer unstuck from the time-frozen thing, but we also figured out that the only way to remove the time distortions and to return everything back to normal was to blow up this entire fleet which would set off a chain reaction which would eradicate the Enterprise and the Heart-of-Gold- and it's crew."  
  
Wait a minnit. Wasn't that what the Coruscant fleet was trying to acheive?  
  
Obi-Wan looked shocked. 'But woulnd't that destroy Coruscant as well?"  
  
Deanna looked down. "The planet will not be harmed." She gazed back intensely at Obi-Wan. "You must understand that this is the only way to save the galaxy from complete obliteration by the hands of Bill Gates. We will conduct the ultimate sacrifice."  
  
Hmmm, I wonder what happened to the mean kid Deanna was talking about in the first instalment?  
  
Obi-Wan paused for a moment and considered. "I guess so..." he sighed and looked at the viewscreen, where the two Qs were conducting a wrestle a la WWF. "My only regret is that I'll never accomplish my life-long goal of being able to download Shockwave...."  
  
Data nodded, and began to key in the information to self destruct the fleet.  
  
[ENTERPRISE BRIDGE]  
  
The situation was seriously out of control. The combined effects of the epic battle of the Qs, the workings of the Improbability drive and the time distortions had its focal point on the bridge of the Enterprise. Beverly Crusher was *still* bashing Picard's brains out (that woman doesn't ever give up, does she?), all the phaser fodder (read: ensigns) were still frozen, a dozen univited bunnies were running aroung the bridge and Riker couldn't figure out a way to stop the viewscreen from repeating telecasts of Clinton's speeches.  
  
Worst of all was the message from the Microsoft fleet, from Data, telling them that they had only ten minutes left to live.  
  
Riker groaned. "I suppose we're supposed to break the bad news to the Heart of Gold," he muttered. He shook his head, typed in a message and sent it to the Heart of Gold. Then with a big sigh, he resigned himself to his fate.  
  
But Geordi waasn't so easily beaten. "Our ship has twice as many shuttlecrafts as Voyager has," he pointed out. "If we could get our crew onto them we could escape."  
  
Riker thought hard. He thought very hard. He thought as hard as one with a single-digit IQ could think. Finally, after 5 minutes, he said, "That's a good idea. Let's do it!" (5 minutes to go...)  
  
Three minutes later Geordi announced that everyone was loaded on the shuttlecrafts and the escape pods.  
  
"Launch them... all of them," said Riker.  
  
"But, sir-" protested Geordi  
  
"I said *launch them*. That's an *order*. Lieutenant." repeated Riker firmly, hands on hips and glaring in a sad imitation of Janeway's favourite pose. (okay, okay, I know, I'll try not to make so many Voyager references. *try*)  
  
[Yoda appears and says, "Try not. Do or do not. There is no try."  
  
Okay then, I'll pick "do not". *evil smirk*  
  
[Kate appears in a flash of light and starts bonking me on the head. "How dare you?!?!?!?" she shrieks insanely. "I'll have your head-"]  
  
Oops. Sorry for the digression. Back to the story....  
  
Geordi announced that all the shuttlecraft and escape pods on the ship had been jettisoned.  
  
Beverly stopped tormenting Picard to glare at Riker. "What?!? You didn't leave any for us?!?!" Whereupon she turned on him and started beating his head in instead.  
  
Picard stood up (he's still alive? this guy has got endurance!) and started wailing, "We're going to dieee! We're all going to di-i-i-i-i-iiiiiiie-"  
  
Worf picked up a twentieth-century Maths textbook and threw it at Picard, who instantly crumpled in a dazed heap, and, more importantly, shut up. (says something about that textbook, doesn't it)  
  
Two minutes.....  
  
[HEART OF GOLD]  
  
If things were going badly on the Enterprise, they couldn't have been worse on the Heart of Gold.  
  
Firstly, they didn't have any shuttlecraft or escape pods. And even though they didn't have a CMO to engage in mortal combat with thier first mate, they did have Q and Bill Gates, dressed as Atropos and Clothos, conducting a wrestle across 50 dimensions on the bridge which was escalating the progress of the Improbability Drive.  
  
Loud choral music sung in Sanskrit flooded in from the speakers, courtesy of the Enterprise.   
  
"What's that?" asked Arthur Dent. "It sounds like a funeral piece."  
  
The music crashed into a wild tempo as Q and Bill Gates promptly produced lightsabers and started thier dueling with fresh rancor. Zaphod, Ford Prefect, Trillian and Arthur scrambled out of the way of the humming, slashing, devastating blades and perched miserably on the Improbabilty Drive, comtemplating thier last moments of life. Arthur noted with annoyed amusement that the improbabilty factor was approaching 42 infinity times 47 infinity.  
  
The Duel of the Fates came to an abrupt halt as the space time continuum trembled and warped. Bill Gates and Q and the rest of the bridge's occupants stared in awe as the mighty and indomitable Q army appeared and started raining destruction down on the entire Coruscant sector. Arthur started groaning.  
  
"What's the point? We'll gonna blow before they finish us anyway," said Ford Prefect glumly.  
  
One minute...  
  
[DEATH STAR BRIDGE]  
  
Deanna, Obi-Wan and Data seemed to be the only ones left on the Death Star, It was silent on the bridge. The three huddled togther as if for warmth.  
  
"Thirty seconds," annouced Data.  
  
"You know something?" said Deanna softly to Obi-Wan. "If I'm going to die here, I'm glad I get to die with you."  
  
Obi-Wan nodded. "Me too," he said softly.  
  
"Twenty seconds," announced Data.  
  
"And I'm sorry I was mean to you in the beginning," she added.  
  
Obi-Wan grinned a little. "Me too," he nodded.  
  
Deanna turned to Data. "Data? I would like to thank you for the years of service we spent together. They were most enjoyable."  
  
"Thank you, Commander," said Data gravely, nodding (what is it that they have with nodding?!?). "It is unfortunate that we cannot say our appropriate farewells our comrades on the Enterprise in the ten seconds we have left."  
  
"Ten seconds," whispered Deanna softly.  
  
Obi-Wan gazed out at the energy bolts dancing outside the ship. "And I had so much I planned to do in life..." Grow a ponytail, turn Anakin to the Dark Side, be a hermit on a dustball for twenty years....  
  
"Five seconds."  
  
"Four."  
  
"Three."  
  
"Two."  
  
"One."  
  
Deanna squeezed her eyes tightly shut.  
  
"Zero."  
  
[CORUSCANT FLEET]  
  
There was a bright ghastly light which enveloped Coruscant and washed its bright actinic glare over it. When the light had faded, everything was the same as it was before. Except for a few little things, as Obi-Wan was about to find out.  
  
He opened his eyes and was confused. He was lying in the Coruscant Medical Centre. A Jedi Master was waiting for him. Obi-Wan felt really lost. He last remebered trying to take minutes of a Jedi Council meeting. Then there had been this bright flash of light... and now he was here. He looked down at himself. Strange. He had envisioned himself being smaller than that... He shurugged, and turned to face the Jedi Master. "Where is Master Yoda?" he asked.  
  
The Jedi Master looked him in the eye. "Master Yoda will no longer coach you. He has been elected to the head of the new Jedi Council."  
  
"The *new* Jedi Council?" said Obi-Wan tentatively. Oh no, he thought, don't tell me my downloading Shockwave had something to do with that....  
  
The Master nodded. "There was an .... unfortunate accident and the entire Jedi Council has apparently disappeared."  
  
"Oh." said Obi-Wan. At least it isn't my fault, he thought. He suddenly remembered a resolution he had once made to keep a ponytail and a pigtail and decided that from now on he would do that even though it wa a weird notion. "Then who will be my new master?" he asked.  
  
The Jedi Master turned to look at him, muttering something about "leaving the trouble to the troublesome" before replying.  
  
"Master Qui-Gon Jinn."  
  
[ENTERPRISE BRIDGE]  
  
Picard blinked. Q was on the bridge and everything was back to normal. Beverly was no longer acting like a crazed woman. The ensigns were unfrozen. The bunnies were gone. Data and Deanna were back and whole. They were alive!  
  
"Well," he remarked. "What just happened?"  
  
Q appeared on the bridge, looking rather pleased with himself. "Aha, mon captiane, it seems to me that' you've lost your nice new pink hair."  
  
Picard glowered at Q. "Yes, I remember *that*, thank you very much. And I can't tell you how much I'd just love to wring your neck for getting me so totally bashed up I have to spend five weeks in sickbay."  
  
Beverly smirked at him. "Are you sure you *really* want to do that?"  
  
"In stasis," he added hastily.  
  
Q shrugged. "Well, we could sit here arguing the whole day, or I could tell you what actually happened."  
  
Picard sighed. "Okay. So what happened?"   
  
Q smiled. "Well, it seems that one of our kind had implemented a failsafe in the Improbability Drive which reverted everything back to normal. His name was Steve Jobs."  
  
"Job...." muttered Picard, trying to think of Bible references. "What kind of failsafe anyway?"  
  
"Well the Improbability Factor reached a point so high that the most improbable thing that could happen was that everything returned to normal, and since it was the correct probability in that frame of time, it did." said Q.  
  
"What?" said Picard, confused.  
  
Q groaned. 'You are *so* dim, mon capitane. "In other words, it turned itself off."  
  
"And of Bill Gates?" asked Picard hesitantly.   
  
"Oh, him." Q smirked. "To punish him further, the Q Continuum returned him to the twenthieth century and gave his company a lawsuit." [insert evil laughter here]  
  
Picard nodded.  
  
"And what of the Heart of Gold?"  
  
"Back to where it was... minus a little piece of equipment." said Q. "But don't ask. I just donated it some people whom I'd thought would need it..."  
  
Picard rolled his eyes. "Oh great," he said. "Nevermind, at least it's over. Now, I'm going off for five weeks in stasis in sickbay... "  
  
"Wait, mon capitane," said Q. "Do you really think I've finished with you yet?"  
  
And with a poof of light, the whole senior crew found themselves in the officer's lounge,which was filled with all kinds of sumptuous food.  
  
"Food..." said Q.  
  
"Foood!" yelled Worf, and charged.  
  
"Hold it," said Q, freezing Worf mid-air. He snapped his fingers and half the food turned to tribbles. Worf's frozen position managed to convey a sense of horror.  
  
"Okay great, can we start eating now before the tribbles multiply?" asked Riker irritatedly. He reached for a food bun. Suddenly it shot up and smashd on his face. Simultaneously a tribble landed on Worf's head and shrieked loudly.  
  
"You mortals never let me finish a sentence," said Q in irritation. "What I meant to say was....  
  
"Food and tribble fight!"  
  
{splutsplutsplutsplutsplutsplutsplutsplutsplutshriekshriekshireksplutsplutshrieksplutshireksplutsplutsplutaaaahhh!ackackacksplutsplutsplotsplotsquelchsplutsplutsplutsplutsplutsplutsplutsplutplutshriekshriekshireksplutsplutshrieksplutshireksplutsplutsplutaaaahhh!ackackacksplutsplutsplotsplotsquelchsplutsplutsplutsplutsplutsplutsplutsplutplutshriekshriekshrieksplutsplutshrieksplutshrieksplutsplutsplutaaaahhh!ackackacksplutsplutsplotsplotsquelchsplutsplutshriekshrieksplutsplutshriekshriek......}  
(you get the idea)  
  
[EPILOGUE]  
  
And so all was back to normal, except for a few other things, including the Death Star and a couple of Star Destroyers which was left hanging around to be discovered by a certain Senator Palpatine (now you know how a single one man fighter managed to destroy that thing. It's Microsoft!).  
  
And also a little apology gift from Q to a certain starship out there who had been recently plagued by omnipotent Smurfs (no prize for guessing who. And stop glaring, Kate!) And thus the Improbabilty Drive caused the following to happen (in order of increasing improbabilty): 1)The Voyager got home. 2)Consoles no longer exploded in future episodes. 3)All shuttlecrafts developed not a single problem for te rest of the season. 4)Harry and Seven got married. (Happy now, Kate? Good! Now get that phaser rifle outta my back!)(Takes one look at Sandy moaning in agony on the floor) Oh well, it's always hard to please everyone when you're a writer.... And Worf was returned, seriously traumatised, to Deep Space Nine, where he had to undergo Tribble Recovery therapy with Bashir and Ezri for two whole weeks (there! a DS9 reference. Happy? And please please stop groaning Sandy).  
  
[Kate appears and demands to know why I like Voyager so much]  
  
Well that's because a certain cousin of mine is named after the captain *bwaa ha ha ha* no just kidding, the *real* reason is that if all the women on the Voyager teamed up to bash up the men the men would find themselves on the wrong end of an airlock *bwaa ha ha ha ha ha*  
  
Well anyway to conclude the story Q decides to make everyone happy by , uh.... creating a dozen alternate universes with models to suit everyone's taste of perfection. (yay! I have found a way to please everyone) Thus they all lived happily ever after!  
  
[THE END]  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Bill Gates: That's what you think. I'll be back! *BWAA HA HA HA!*  
  
  
  
  
  
  
This piece of fanfic was written by Lt Taya 17 Janeway aka TaTTooGaL in the year 1999 just before her prelims (so you can't blame her for all the crap becase she was not sane at that time.) I mean, what else could you have expected of something which began as a little bored doodling while waiting to download (what else?) Shockwave on my computer?  
  
Live Long and Prosper followers of Syrup! 


End file.
